Revision as of 09:07, 9 July 2008

Note: This is the (ongoing) description of the new framework architecture that is in development. See OpenmokoOldFramework for the framework architecture of 2007.1 and 2007.2 and NeoSoftwareStack for the current status (which has nothing to do yet with this framework)

Audio

Gstreamer is to be used for all kinds of event sounds where a) multiple audio formats need to be supported and b) a latency of about one second is acceptable. This goes for e.g. ring tones, welcome tones, plug indication.

Pulseaudio is to be used for event sounds, where low-latency is necessary, e.g. touch click sounds and UI event acknowledge sounds. Pulseaudio is our general all-purpose mixer. Gstreamer will use the pulseaudio sink to feed audio through.

GSM

The low level GSM services expect a modem complying to GSM 07.07, GSM 07.05, and assorted GSM specifications, talking an AT-protocol over a serial line. If GSM 07.10 is supported, we use the multiplexing daemon

GPS

Network

The low level networking service assumes network interfaces, such as USB, Ethernet, Wifi, etc. We rely on the following software here:

Network Manager or Intel Connection Manager (undecided yet)

ppp

High Level

Usage

The Usage subsystem is coordinating application I/O requirements preventing. Applications are not supposed to turn on or off devices, since they do not have any knowledge about concurrent applications that may be also using the device -- think reference counting for I/O requirements.

With this added layer, we could later think about monitoring subsystems, subsystem usage statistics, or accounting.

See discussion page about PolicyKit.

Events

signaling events via I/O (ringing, blinking, vibrating)

might use fd.o notification API

PIM

An intelligent storage database server. This is being carried out as a Google Summer of Code project. See complete description at [1]

Context

Intelligent context API, integrating location as one -- among other -- sources

TBD
Reference Geoclue

Telephony

Voice

Data

Preferences

settings database

Network

high level networking queries

Implementation

Completion Status

Low Level

device control: 50%

audio: 80%

GSM: 80%

Bluetooth: 80%

GPS: 80%

Network: 50%

High Level

Usage: 0%

Event: 0%

Preferences: 0%

Context: 0%

Telephony: 50%

Networking: 0%

PIM: 0%

The role of Python

Where we write new code, we will use Python to implement the dbus services. The reason for that being the rapid prototyping nature of Python and the emphasis on the Dbus APIs. Using Python, the turnaround times to experiment with APIs are incredibly faster than for using a compiled language such as C or C++.

Once the APIs have been used by application programmers, we can start profiling and possibly reimplement some of the services with daemons written in Vala, if necessary. We might as well succeed in improving performance by using Pyrex/Cython/Ctypes to keep the benefits of Python.

Personal tools

Note: This is the (ongoing) description of the new framework architecture that is in development. See OpenmokoOldFramework for the framework architecture of 2007.1 and 2007.2 and NeoSoftwareStack for the current status (which has nothing to do yet with this framework)

Answering the #1 and #2 questions

Question: Is this a part of the current images yet?

Answer: No.

Question: When can I see this as part of an image?

Answer: We expect a zhone-image (including all framework goodies) to turn up as alpha versions around June'08, beta in August'08, with a public stable release in September'08.

Purposes

Give people the infrastructure to create solid and exciting software products based on the Openmoko platform

Support competing UIs while collaborating on developing services

Encourage framework users (e.g. application developers) to also contribute to the framework

Requirements

Make it simple

Concentrate on core services

Be programming language agnostic

Be UI toolkit agnostic

Try to reuse existing technologies as much as possible, but not at the cost of a bad API

How to achieve that technically

Chose Dbus as the collaboration line. Below dbus, we can work together. Above dbus, we can differentiate.

Expose features through dbus APIs implemented by UI-agnostic and language-agnostic services (daemons).

Optimize for Openmoko devices, but support multiple architectures and purposes through plugin interfaces and suitable hardware abstraction mechanisms.

Be not afraid of reinventing the wheel for a wheel-barrow if all the existing wheels are made for sports cars.

Audio

Gstreamer is to be used for all kinds of event sounds where a) multiple audio formats need to be supported and b) a latency of about one second is acceptable. This goes for e.g. ring tones, welcome tones, plug indication.

Pulseaudio is to be used for event sounds, where low-latency is necessary, e.g. touch click sounds and UI event acknowledge sounds. Pulseaudio is our general all-purpose mixer. Gstreamer will use the pulseaudio sink to feed audio through.

GSM

The low level GSM services expect a modem complying to GSM 07.07, GSM 07.05, and assorted GSM specifications, talking an AT-protocol over a serial line. If GSM 07.10 is supported, we use the multiplexing daemon

GPS

Network

The low level networking service assumes network interfaces, such as USB, Ethernet, Wifi, etc. We rely on the following software here:

Network Manager or Intel Connection Manager (undecided yet)

ppp

High Level

Usage

The Usage subsystem is coordinating application I/O requirements preventing. Applications are not supposed to turn on or off devices, since they do not have any knowledge about concurrent applications that may be also using the device -- think reference counting for I/O requirements.

With this added layer, we could later think about monitoring subsystems, subsystem usage statistics, or accounting.

See discussion page about PolicyKit.

Events

signaling events via I/O (ringing, blinking, vibrating)

might use fd.o notification API

PIM

An intelligent storage database server. This is being carried out as a Google Summer of Code project. See complete description at [1]

Context

Intelligent context API, integrating location as one -- among other -- sources

TBD
Reference Geoclue

Telephony

Voice

Data

Preferences

settings database

Network

high level networking queries

Implementation

Completion Status

Low Level

device control: 50%

audio: 80%

GSM: 80%

Bluetooth: 80%

GPS: 80%

Network: 50%

High Level

Usage: 0%

Event: 0%

Preferences: 0%

Context: 0%

Telephony: 50%

Networking: 0%

PIM: 0%

The role of Python

Where we write new code, we will use Python to implement the dbus services. The reason for that being the rapid prototyping nature of Python and the emphasis on the Dbus APIs. Using Python, the turnaround times to experiment with APIs are incredibly faster than for using a compiled language such as C or C++.

Once the APIs have been used by application programmers, we can start profiling and possibly reimplement some of the services with daemons written in Vala, if necessary. We might as well succeed in improving performance by using Pyrex/Cython/Ctypes to keep the benefits of Python.